


Halfway Home

by MintSauce



Series: The Halfway House [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:31:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey has a plan. Not a very good one mind, but it's better than nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halfway Home

**Author's Note:**

> So a couple of people have asked me for what Mickey was up to during the years he was away. Here you go! Thanks for reading!

It wasn’t the time immediately following turning eighteen that was the hard part.

It wasn’t even the first year.

Sure, he missed Ian like he missed a limb, felt like something had been carved right out of his very soul… but it wasn’t the hardest part.

At first he had something to focus on completely. He was too busy trying to scrape together money, trying to feed himself at the same time and trying to find a safe place to sleep that kept his mind busy.

He went from couch to couch, from barely known relative to barely known relative. Flashing his last name got him somewhere, but there were still times he found himself bundled up under his coats beneath the El. He stole most of what he ate then, stashed all of his money in a locker in some gym he knew the employee code for the back door of. He checked on it compulsively, moved lockers at least one every three days.

He worked construction until his back ached and his fingers bled.

He pushed drugs for one of his Uncles, skimming a percentage off the top since the blind fuck couldn’t do math for shit. He pushed that too. Never took any of it though, like the whipped pussy he now was.

He ate, slept, worked and that was about it.

He rediscovered his dick after about six months, spent a whole weekend jerking himself raw.

After seven months he had what he’d deemed enough. He took a shower, emptied the locker and went to the landlord of the apartment block Ian had pointed to once in clothes he’d stolen and a backpack full of cash on his back.

The deposit and rent wasn’t nearly what he’d thought it was going to be.

Then there he was, standing in the middle of a bare apartment, alone. No Ian, not for another year and five months yet. And maybe not even then, but Mickey didn’t let himself think about that. He couldn’t, because he missed the stupid little shit in a way he didn’t know how to comprehend.

Sometimes he’d have to double over under the force of it, under the force of all the _what if_ ’s and the ways he could have fucked this up. Probably _had_ fucked this up.

That still wasn’t the hard part though.

With the money he saved on the rent, he hired a kid he used to know from the neighbourhood on the cheap to lay down some semi-decent flooring. He got another guy to do the dry wall.

He did the rest himself.

Mickey electrocuted himself three times, almost flooded the place once and fell off his step ladder trying to paint the ceiling more times than he could count.

He made everything bright. The hallway a dark blue, the living room cream with the largest wall a shocking shade of orange-red. He slept on a blow up air mattress those first three months after moving in. Thought he may have fucked his back up permanently, started doing weird ass yoga exercises to prove he hadn’t.

He got hired to collect trash, which was fine. It paid well and the hours weren’t too long. It meant he could work with the trash, work on the apartment and then catch a few hours of sleep before starting again.

Mickey raided thrift shops for furniture. He got a couch, a table and three mismatched chairs. He bought a fridge in a colour that actually offended him a little, but got a deal on it so sucked it the fuck up. He bought a dresser, a wardrobe and even one of those tiny bathroom cabinet things for medicine and shit.

He hung up a mirror, broke a mirror, cut his finger, bought a new mirror.

He bought a shitty television that looked like it belonged to the era before he was even born. He bought a bed from a place that wasn’t a thrift shop, a mattress from a store that was half decent.

 _What I wouldn’t give for a decent fucking mattress,_ Ian had said. _And decent water pressure._

So Mickey replaced the shower head, set the bed up and lay on one side for three hours the first night before he got up and slept on the couch.

He lived his life for a year and a half in a rinse, repeat, don’t forget to fucking spit sort of cycle. He was doing good though, no arrests, no problems… at least not after the mirror.

And then it happened. Then the reality came crashing down.

He saw him on a Wednesday, which just confirms Mickey’s suspicion that nothing good ever happens on a Wednesday.

He doesn’t see Mickey. Doesn’t see him, because why would he? Mickey’s just standing there in the background trying to decide whether or not he actually wants to spend the extra money on the decent tasting soup or just get the store brand shit.

Mickey’s standing there with an apartment that’s pretty much finished and a can of soup in his hand and Ian Gallagher is at the other end of the far aisle, talking to some dickhead with fucking _bangs_.

 _Bangs_ , like what the fuck. They’re the sort that belong on a chick too and Mickey wouldn’t care, would convince himself more that he does. not. care… except Ian’s looking at this guy and he’s crapping his crotch and he’s saying something low into his ear.

And Mickey slams the soup back and he gets the fuck out of there, because he doesn’t need to stand there and watch that. He doesn’t need to stand there and watch Gallagher, _his_ Gallagher, blatantly gearing up to fuck some guy while Mickey is getting this stupid fucking apartment ready like he’s some bitchy housewife.

He breaks the mirror again, downs a bottle of whiskey and finds himself on the gayer part of town making eyes at a prick with strawberry blonde hair. Not even ginger, because there weren’t any of those, but a faggoty fucking strawberry blonde.

He doesn’t let the guy kiss him, but he does let him palm his crotch and rub up against him in the alley way outside. He lets the guy put his hand inside Mickey’s boxers, start work on undoing his belt and then… well then it all gets kind of fuzzy, but he distinctly remembers throwing up on the guy’s shoes.

He considers it something of an omen.

When he wakes up, it’s face down on the floor of the apartment and he laughs for a solid ten minutes before he lets the couple of tears escape.

He picks himself up after that and even though it hurts, he soldiers on.

He was an idiot to think that this wouldn’t happen. That Gallagher would wait around for him to get his act together and come back. Maybe it would be different if Ian actually knew what Mickey was doing here, but he doesn’t so Mickey can’t complain.

He lost that right.

He drinks for another week and then one day more before he finally drags his ass into work and confesses to his partner Louis that, “Had it a bit rough. Found out they moved on.”

And Louis looks at him, maybe really looks at him for one of the first times and nods, says, “Sucks. I’m sorry.” It seems like he means it and he probably does.

It’s the first time that Mickey discovers that he’s allowed to function without Gallagher. It doesn’t mean he wants to though.

So he starts going out with Louis after work, starts drinking for a reason other than to get black out drunk and forget. He meets Louis’ wife, a couple of other guys on the circuit, befriends the woman behind the bar, the kid at the store down the road nods know when Mickey goes in to buy his milk.

Mickey gets his act together like he didn’t think he could before.

He realises it’s not enough just to have the apartment. He’s what is at fault too. He has to be better. So he tries. He honestly tries. He tries to be something more than Terry Milkovich’s fucked up, gay son.

He doesn’t know what’s going to come next, so he tries not to think about it.

But still, he takes a shower, washes his hair even and dresses in clothes that are nice, then ones that are a little more _him_. He marks the date off on the calendar, the final ‘X’ and the final nail in his coffin maybe.

He takes a bus to Louis and then drives to the place he never wanted to go back to. He’s there before the sun has even come up. Sitting frozen underneath that tree just waiting. It takes two to make a relationship, but only one to end it. And this is him saying he’s willing to make it work.

He’s going to be broken, but he’s not going to be surprised if Ian ends it here.

When Ian finally appears, he’s beautiful.

He’s beautiful in a way that suddenly feels so much more unattainable than it ever has before. Ian’s grown, muscles standing out more along his arms and his hair still that impossible beacon that Mickey never will know how to resist.

He takes a step closer, falters a little but it’s the old bravado rising in his throat. _Fake it ‘til you make it, Mick_.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Ian asks and he’s angry, of course he’s angry.

Mickey expected that.

“Knew you got out today,” he says, because that’s honest.

“So what, you thought you’d show up and see if I wanted a fucking lift?”

The red is starting to bleed down from Ian’s hair into his face. It’s hot in a way that it really shouldn’t be. He throws the keys because he doesn’t have the words to convince Ian. He can already see the losing battle and he wants to fight for this, but he doesn’t know if he has that right anymore.

It’s not giving up if you’ve already lost, is it?

There’s a boy standing behind Ian, watching. _Are you the one who won?_ Mickey thinks. He doesn’t want to know, but he’s pretty sure by now that Mickey isn’t the one that’s going to come out on top.

Just like the rest of his family, he’s failed.

He won’t be cruel like them though. He made this for Ian, he made the apartment for Ian so he doesn’t mind handing the keys over. It feels like a relief almost, for the decision to be completely out of his hands.

“What the fuck are these?” Ian asks and Mickey’s taken back to the days in the room in the building in front of him. Ian asking stupid questions and Mickey snorting, pretending they were annoying and not adorable like he really thought.

“Keys, Gallagher,” he says, snorting.

_Your keys. Our keys._

_The keys to us_.

Those keys are everything really and at the same time they have the potential to be nothing at all.

“I can see that,” Ian snaps. “What are they for?”

Mickey shifts. This is where he knows he’s going to have to answer. He wants to give Ian enough to work it out, but at the same time, he wants to see if he can. He doesn’t want to just hand the apartment over that easily.

He wants to see if Ian remembers as much as he did, or if Mickey was the only one hoarding all of the memories they made.

“Wasn’t that your biggest fear?” Mickey asks. “Not knowing where to go after this shit hole?” They both know it is. Was.

Ian’s always been scared of the future, of what comes next. Like Mickey, but Mickey’s good at choking down the fear. He doesn’t want Ian to have to.

He waves up at the Halfway House, trying to cement his point. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth though, that he could hate a place and still be so grateful to it. He spits, watches Ian watch him do it.

“You bought an apartment?” Ian asks and for a second it’s like he forgets to be angry. He looks almost impressed, but then… it just shows what Ian thinks he’s capable of. It hurts in a way that Mickey didn’t know he wasn’t expecting.

He should have done.

“No,” he admits after a beat. _In for a penny, in for a pound, right?_ “I bought _you_ an apartment, fuck head. I’ll be back on Wednesday to get my shit.”

 He doesn’t know where he’s going to go until then, but he can find somewhere. It won’t be the first time he’s bummed it and it’s not looking like it will be the last either.

Wednesday gives him enough days to think of something he might be able to say. To think if he even has the right to say anything at all.

He turns to walk away, because he can’t see the look on Ian’s face. He can’t hear Ian tell him not to bother, or to throw the keys back down at his feet. He can’t bear for it to be a waste.

“At least tell me where the fuck it is then!” Ian shouts after him and Mickey almost laughs at forgetting that part.

“Where the fuck do you think, Gallagher?” he shouts back over his shoulder. “It’s in fucking Disneyland. Don’t be stupid.”

He wants to see Ian work it out. Hopes he will.

He climbs into the beat up Chevy he borrowed off of Louis for the occasion and drives away. His hands are shaking on the wheel and he has to pull off after a minute to throw up on the side of the road.

He watches his vomit pool in the dirt and stays hunched over, not quite waiting for more to come, but in no rush to do anything else. He wipes his mouth off after a second and climbs back into the driver’s seat. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel to stop his hands shaking and cranks the radio up to drown out his brain.

It’s only when he’s reaching for his phone to call Louis, to ask to crash for a few days maybe or just _something_. Maybe he just wants to talk, he doesn’t know.

All he knows is that in all of his haste and his nervousness, he’d left his phone sitting on the counter in the kitchen. He can picture where it is exactly and thinks, _fuck_.

Maybe he can get in and out before Ian works out where the place is.

Maybe he can just sneak in and Ian won’t notice.

He knows he’s bullshitting himself. Still, he drives over there and wastes another ten minutes in the car trying to convince himself _this is not a panic attack. You can breathe. This is a different sort of suffocation._

He steps in through the door, pulling up short because there Ian is, rushing out to greet him. Mickey doesn’t know what’s going to come next, doesn’t particularly care. Because he pauses, door swinging closed behind him and he thinks, _huh_.

_So that’s what home feels like._

**Author's Note:**

> I am still [themintsauce](http://themintsauce.tumblr.com) on tumblr. If there's anything you'd like to see in the series or anything you think, please come tell me. I love you guys!


End file.
